Mistral Medium vs Swallow 30B
Mistral Medium (2023) and Swallow 30B (2025) are compact production models from MistralAI and Tokyo Institute of Technology. Mistral Medium ships a 32K-token context window, while Swallow 30B ships a 16K-token context window. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit. It focuses on practical selection signals rather than broad model-family marketing. The goal is to make the tradeoff clear before deeper testing.
Swallow 30B is safer overall; choose Mistral Medium when long-context analysis matters.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Mistral Medium | Swallow 30B |
|---|---|---|
| Decision fit | Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use | General |
| Context window | 32K | 16K |
| Cheapest output | $2/1M tokens | - |
| Provider routes | 2 tracked | 0 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 0 rows | 0 rows |
Decision tradeoffs
- Mistral Medium has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Mistral Medium has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and procurement flexibility.
- Mistral Medium uniquely exposes Structured outputs in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Mistral Medium for Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use.
- Use Swallow 30B when your own prompt tests beat the comparison signals; the local data does not show a decisive standalone advantage yet.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output prices on this page.
Mistral Medium
$820
Cheapest tracked route: OpenRouter
Swallow 30B
Unavailable
No complete token price in local provider data
Cost delta unavailable until both models have sourced input and output token prices.
Switch friction
- No overlapping tracked provider route is sourced for Mistral Medium and Swallow 30B; plan for SDK, billing, or endpoint changes.
- Check replacement coverage for Structured outputs before moving production traffic.
- No overlapping tracked provider route is sourced for Swallow 30B and Mistral Medium; plan for SDK, billing, or endpoint changes.
- Mistral Medium adds Structured outputs in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2023-12-11 | 2025-02-14 |
| Context window | 32K | 16K |
| Parameters | — | 30B |
| Architecture | decoder only | - |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Open Source |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Mistral Medium | Swallow 30B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.4/1M tokens | - |
| Output price | $2/1M tokens | - |
| Providers | - |
Capabilities
| Capability | Mistral Medium | Swallow 30B |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Function calling | No | No |
| Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | Yes | No |
| Code execution | No | No |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark rows are currently sourced for this pair.
Deep dive
The capability footprint differs most on structured outputs: Mistral Medium. Both models share the core language-model surface, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
Pricing coverage is uneven: Mistral Medium has $0.4/1M input tokens and Swallow 30B has no token price sourced yet. Provider availability is 2 tracked routes versus 0. Treat unknown pricing as an integration gap, then verify the route you will actually call before estimating production spend.
Choose Mistral Medium when long-context analysis, larger context windows, and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Swallow 30B when provider fit are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship. This keeps the decision grounded in measurable tradeoffs instead of brand-level assumptions. It also helps separate model capability from provider packaging, which can change cost and latency. For teams standardizing a stack, that distinction is often the difference between a benchmark win and a reliable deployment.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Mistral Medium or Swallow 30B?
Mistral Medium supports 32K tokens, while Swallow 30B supports 16K tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Is Mistral Medium or Swallow 30B open source?
Mistral Medium is listed under Apache 2.0. Swallow 30B is listed under Open Source. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for structured outputs, Mistral Medium or Swallow 30B?
Mistral Medium has the clearer documented structured outputs signal in this comparison. If structured outputs is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Where can I run Mistral Medium and Swallow 30B?
Mistral Medium is available on Mistral AI Studio and OpenRouter. Swallow 30B is available on the tracked providers still being sourced. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
When should I pick Mistral Medium over Swallow 30B?
Swallow 30B is safer overall; choose Mistral Medium when long-context analysis matters. If your workload also depends on long-context analysis, start with Mistral Medium; if it depends on provider fit, run the same evaluation with Swallow 30B.
Continue comparing
Last reviewed: 2026-05-11. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.